All Season Tyres...an alternative to having winter and summer tyres?

[otherclive]

With the debate over winter tyres in many journals I tend to feel that motorists are being subtly pressured into making another expensive purchase. The tyre industry is trying to make the Government legislate for fitting winter tyres as per Germany. But even in Germany you can drive most places (except some alpine areas) on non-winter tyres. Howver if you have an accident the onus will be on you to prove that tyres were not a factor. Notwithstanding I have read that +50% of German cars have winter tyre fitted. One argument for winter tyres is that it saves wear on your summer tyres but to be effective in snow winter tyres mostly need at least 4mm tread. Those we see for sale in UK as used tyres are 'worn' German ones with less than 4mm tread. So although they may be okay in cold conditions their snow characteristics may be weak.
However there is one type of tyre that manufacturers have been constantly improving, that is the All Weather/Seasons Tyre. For many areas of UK the performance of such tyres can rival winter tyres in cold conditions, and is not far off summer tyres in hot conditions (+22 degC). The attached link shows the results of an Auto Bild De test of All Weather tyres. Since it was published other (mainly German) publications have carried out similar tests which show AW/S tyres to be a feasible proposition in most of UK. I have them fitted to our Note and it's not driven like a WRC but they have never given me any anxious moments, and wear is about 3k miles more over 14k miles driven when compared to normal (summer) tyres.
Don't have them on the XC70 as the insurer does not accept dropping the speed rating to H from V. So when the weather turns bad guess which car get used?
http://global.hankooktire.com/Tech/h730_test_8.pdf

 

[RogerL]

At replacement time I buy All-Season tyres but only choosing from those that also have M+S and the "mountain/snowflake" symbol which means they also qualify as Winter tyres - Vredestein Quatrac 3 SUV would be my current choice.
Apparently the law has recently been changed in Germany requiring ALL cars to be fitted with Winter tyres in winter, rather than just in the Alpine regions as previously.
I'm not sure that insurers can insist on V-rated tyres - there is no legal requirement to have tyres speed rated higher than the 70mph limit !!